Clean Fight
by MessengerOfDreams
Summary: Little Mac sends an open letter in for SSB4.


Name's Mac. Mac Jones. Well, Malcolm Jones if ya wanna be traditional. That's the name my mama gave me, at least. But when you're active, an athlete and all, the less syllables, the better. Mac, that's easy to shout between people. Sharp, strong, immediate. Say it and you're done, get back to trainin', get back to fightin', get back to keeping your eyes on the prize.

Speaking of which, ya mighta heard of me years past. The same way you heard of Wham! and Andrew Dice Clay. Like, yeah, those were big names way the hell in the past, but now who cares? And Little Mac, wasn't he just a charming little champ. New York's street rat champion. Almost Rocky in real life in some ways. Get an old champ way past his prime and give him a test project, and he'll show him the world. That's how Doc was. And that's what he told me. Back in the day, he used to say, and I admit I kinda tuned out at the time, that boxing wasn't the same as it used to be.

And unlike most old fucks I knew, he wasn't talking about how there were gloves now and the pugilists like Tommy Ray Handley didn't take guff from anyone or god only knows. I don't know much boxing history cause I was an in-the-now stubborn kid, but looking back now it sticks with me. He'd say that back then boxing was a sport and not an exhibition. Made sense, so I tuned it out, because boxing's a sport, why else do you compete?

But he was right, gotta say. You get people parading in like super macho roided-up costume caricaturing fucks putting on a show. Super Macho Man, The Great Tiger, Vodka Drunkinski, he'd say we went from a boxing ring to the Saturday Night Live stage, and he was right. Course, I didn't care because they were just blank slate opponents. Sure, different tactics, but same game. Punch out your opponents and haul your broken-ass body to the podium where you'd get a belt and Doc would carry your scrawny ass out on your shoulder, which was practically the top of the world.

Little Mac.

Didn't know that he'd become a character of his own. Kind of a shame, because Little Mac was a blank slate. He was everyman, a young kid who could win a war of attrition without breaking a sweat. No, he couldn't knock you off the stage with a punch but he'd duck all the ones you threw at him and just needle you down like water chippin' through rock. It ain't gonna happen immediately, but it's gonna happen. But over time Little Mac got a little lost in the world of being a superstar. All the talkups from Doc, enthused about you being the savior to boxing culture, all the kids who wrote you crayon letters with backwards Ls about how you inspire them, all the comments about how history's been made by the new world title champion, suddenly Little Mac wasn't an everyman, he was THE everyman, which of course made no fucking sense.

Cause Malcolm Lewis wasn't nothing special. School dropout to work in fish markets and laundromats to keep his family in the ratty Harlem basement they lived in. Nothing but the school of hard knocks, no father figure to give him advice on how to be the man you wanna be, much less the man you should be. Friends whose chief skills were getting the hell in trouble and scrambling the hell out of it. Little Mac's style wasn't an invention, it was basic fight and flight. Every blockhead on the block thought it was one or the other, but nope, you can do both. Dodge the punches, then deliver your own. And you get enough of your fellow street rats telling you you're good at throwing a punch, then damn, it's the first time anyone's realized you have a skill beyond hanging up dry cleaning and carving fish eyes out of a socket.

There was no rise to fame. There was a fucking rocketing into the stratosphere. And the fame came first, and suddenly everyone was proud of you the way you wish your father would have been. Sure, there was some hedonism- no fall's complete without one- but the one thing you overdid more than the drinks and the two-day-long relationships was the pride- you were proud that America was proud of you, that you did something worth being proud of.

Course, pride never goeth before the fall. Pride is the kick in the ass knocking you off the top of the world.

What can I say? I got sloppy. I tried to throw together a house on the sand, is what I think my mom would have said in Sunday School at the church I'd long since stopped attending so I could worship at the bar instead. I could do any fuckin' thing, it felt like. And it turns out, I didn't. I stopped practicing, stopped focusing, and became the character, and the character became the caricature, right down to the fall from grace.

Years later, and I don't think about Little Mac all that much. Not that I've totally moved on, but it slips my mind. Took what was left of my winnings, found myself another basement apartment in Harlem, and now I'm starting school, although I gotta use Financial Aid, so far has my fall from grace been. That shouldn't be embarrassing, but I guess I'm still shaking out my pride like bad meth sweats. Got myself a nice roommate. Cool redhead chick from the army. Got a thing going on. She doesn't really ask about the boxing, I don't ask about the military. Fair trade. Just getting by at the moment. Details sort of slip my mind in a day to day haze. I don't mind it, but I don't love it. But it's something, and I'm lucky to have anything, but damn if I don't want more.

So yeah, Little Mac still has a little part in my heart, what can I say? I can't dodge him, and he needles at me. Erosion takes time, but it's constant. So I guess you could say in some ways I still fantasize about getting back in the ring. But I ain't in my prime. I don't remember the techniques, I'm in dog shit shape right now, and I'm still too ashamed to talk to Doc. So it's not so much the desire to box again that I want. It's the adventure. The challenge. The ability to show that I am still worth something, that I still remember to take care of the ones I love, that I didn't lose everything in the fall.

And I tell ya what, gloves or no gloves, I think I can learn the techniques and routines again. I bet somewhere in my mom's storage I could find the memorabilia. Sometimes I can pretend I can forget but I've taken too many AA meetings to forget my sins. I wish I coulda done it right. I guess that's the only reason I'm considering this, I'll say. The idea that getting to fight again means I get to do it right. Be the clean slate Doc intended. Be a fighter with a little bit of goddamn nobility, be about the game and not the player. Win with grace, do something good with the money. Bring me and mine to a better place, maybe make something out of us. Do all the little things I wanna do with life, and give back in a big way.

So I guess I'm saying if you want me in, I think it's worth a shot. No time for caution when you've never left the ring.

Consider this an open application, Master Hand.

~Mac Jones


End file.
